Official Game Day Thread - Calgary at Winnipeg, July 18, 2025

[Tecno]

our DB's look tiny compared to Alford

He looks exactly like I do swatting at mosquitos around my fire pit.  He doesn't take the DBs seriously (especially not our corners!), he just swats them away or pushes them to the turf.

[Tecno]

you can see Calgary taking away the momentum

There was momentum?  On our side??

[Tecno]

and that is why

Every half-fast DE and LB is now faster than Strevy.  He cannot escape the pocket because everyone will give him a spy or contain who is faster than him.

He used to be able to outrun all but the fastest.  But with his knee surgery and, I'm guessing, brace, he just can't beat hardly anyone.

So we need to eliminate all the outside runs and bootlegs for him.  Or they'll just do like they did here, many times.  What did work was the Brady-follow up the gut.  He can still plow, so have him plow, not speed or deke.

Edit: OMG #86 mr heavy DT for CGY chased him down on the very next play.  Strev has zero speed right now (if ever).  He must stay in the pocket or up the gut.  He cannot escape anyone if he can't escape a near-300lb DT.

[Tecno]

That was such a BS penalty. There was nothing nasty there. C'mon ref.

It was on my Cadwall too.  It was weak, but basically "ref mistake payback" for the weak UR they called on CGY in the pile earlier on.  Both cases it was some guy pushing another player to the ground.  However, the CGY guy did it with a "punch" motion, Cadwall just sort of did a push.

Refs feel bad for botching things with weak calls and often look to equal it out later.  Rightly or wrongly, we see this all the time.

[Tecno]

Wasn't the hit on zach after the ball was gone? That's a penalty.

In all 3 RTPs in this game, the Zach one was the "closest" in timing.  It was a couple of tenths of a second (I can time it later).  The VAJ ones that were called RTP were a couple of tenths more than that.

It's rather arbitrary and up to the ref when they call it.  No one is sitting there with a tenths stopwatch saying 2 10ths is ok but 4 10ths is RTP.  However, that's basically the end result.

Just 5 years ago all of these hits would NOT be RTP.  Oh well.  The difference for us is 1 Zach head on the turf equals 2 weeks of protocol and 2 VAJ hits equals nothing because he's a fair bit younger and has zero concussion history (is there a brain in there to rattle?).

[GOLDMEMBER]

The bandwagon is getting a workout ! Ebbs and flows of pro team. Hard not to get spoiled but let's support the team and fills the stands.

what do you think it looked like tonight? Place was bloody sold out!

[GOLDMEMBER]

I certainly would like to see Hogan step it up with a massive running attack but not banking on it either.

How about Zach just not throwing it at the other colour sweaters.

both QBs failed in an epic fashion. Interception beasts.

[kkc60]

Ah the panic is back.  Deep breath.  Two horrible games.  Need Zach back and gotta get better in a few areas but not as bad as some making it out to be.I'll take money on that.  Doesn't surprise me you take. 
We have 3 decent backups.  Strev played terrible, no need to pile on.  He is better than how he played today.
The suggestion that the officials want to beat us is false imoSecondary is average but Bridges got beat badly imo
Lbs are slightly above average imo
Pash rush inconsistent
When we did get there took penalties 3 and 2 we are decent and laid two eggs against a superior team that is red hot
Yup two areas of concernOur defense is middle of the pack imo

our halfbacks are average to above. Our corners are getting fried and I don't know where Parker is 90% of the time. Same thing with our LBs, especially in the passing game. All they are good for is blitzing and even then, they don't seem to be getting home like they used to

[blue_or_die]

Re the defense, I think I'd feel 1% better if we were able to have gotten pressure against VAJ and forced him to run for first downs. But we made him look like a bona fide pure pocket passer out there most of the time. Got lots of time and made difficult completions when it counted.

[markf]

Player deficiencies aside, The offence seems to be very predictable. Seemed like their defence knew what we were doing almost as well as we did.

It seems to me that they are up close to the line on d, shouldn't something be open across the middle ten yds downfield .

Never see even an attempt at that.

 Missing Bailey's blocking on the short passes. These guys either can't block, wont block, or aren't asked to block.

Their D backfield is really good. Similar to ours when it was the best. Seemed like  Our receivers were smothered. Even on the completions to Demski, he had to make outstanding plays. On the int, he had the ball, their guy just wrenched it away. Great play by them.

Meanwhile their receivers were uncovered at worst, or given too much room at best.

Holm is still at the top playing level. The other backfield guys. Not sure. I guess if one guy back there is confused, the whole thing breaks down.

Also the o line and Brady got some nice runs... yet they go away from it.

Also,having Willie drop back.... Always seemed silly to me. Too cute by half.

Their punter made some great kicks to keep us deep. No chance for return on some of those.

Va was always good, except for his int. Maybe he's finally got it together.

Oh well, interesting season shaping up now. This is not what I expected.

Hope Zach is ok, I wish he would wear the extra helmet protection if he does come back.

[Blue In BC]

O'Shea commits to vets and players that were here on the PR in 2024. All those DB's and receivers brought in for TC and looked at in tryout camps. Vaval only made the roster due to an injury to Logan. Did those on the roster actually win their spots or were they given a free pass by O'Shea /Walters?

Many of the posters felt we wouldn't see too many real changes going into 2025. Now injuries are adding up.

As usual we'll have to see who might be returning from IR or who is going onto IR this week. Collaros is the 1st concern about being lost for at least 1 game.

I think a couple of players have played their way off the starting roster. I wouldn't go as far as saying they should be cut outright but bumped to the PR. OTOH, I don't know if we have anyone better to replace them.

IMO we should bump Parker back to CB and start Allen at safety. That might solve part of the problem. However our biggest weakness is the front 7. We don't even have bodies to consider much in the way of change.

[Waffler]

I'm just going to give credit to Calgary. They are red hot right now and won consecutive weeks in the hardest stadiums to play in. Adams has always been streaky but I always think one of these years he'll figure that out, maybe he finally has. The only other thing that could stop him is an injury. He was a steal at less than 500k. There is a long way to go yet though.

Free agency is huge for us and by that I mean all the talent we lost over the years. You can't watch a game without seeing former Bombers that other teams poached. 

We are still a playoff team, that might be a cross over though. Assuming Edm and Ott don't qualify that leaves just one other team to be eliminated.

Draft picks 8 and 17.  Why are they gifted to Calgary? I still cannot wrap my head around the unfairness of that.

[Jesse]

Not sure what happened to our secondary. We've always had pretty elite pass coverage and these are the same guys out there but they look absolutely atrocious.

[Blue In BC]

It's been discussed before but our two most expensive free agent signings are sitting on the 1 game IR but healthy. The coaches seem to be reluctant to change anything unless we have an injury that forces something.

The time has come to reconsider our overall roster. Has anyone shown more in practice than a current starter and / or has a current starter played his way off the roster? I don't go to practice so I can't specifically speak to that aspect but I can say some starters are on thin ice IMO.

At the very least we should be bringing in some new faces for out PR. If that means cutting someone to make room, I'm ok with that.

[Pete]

main comments
We were outcoached badly, Calgary came in with a game plan to exploit our defensive weaknesses( did Biggy have a role in this as who knows them better) We didnt change our game plan much with a similar result
   The contrast was dramatic in that while we were content to keep trotting out the usual suspects vs calgary revamped whole defense to get younger and more aggressive
Our failure to address known issues effectively in off season is hurting us. We knew we were gonna lose Dobson, Ford , Lawler. We knew our dline wasn't good enough and we tried to fix it with budget replacements
  Our secondary with Bridges and Parker has been porous. Every year OShea plays someone who "works hard" but that to any knowledgeable fan lacks the talent ie Jackson, Johnson,Bridges, and Thomas / Kornelson